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The State Of Inclusion In The Animation Industry
Diversity continues to grow behind the scenes of the film industry, but there are still big disparities when it comes to gender. In animation, only 3 percent of animated film directors are women — and just 1 percent are women of color, according to a 2019 USC Annenberg report.
The Animation Guild is trying to shine light on both the present and the past of gender and racial diversity in animation. Last night, the guild held a panel for its members about those issues.
Animation legend Floyd Norman, one of the first African Americans to work at Disney and one of the animators who was scheduled to be on the panel, said that he thinks animation is color-blind on the way in — talent as a cartoonist on the page is what's looked at first. But being a minority may have kept him from advancing as far as he otherwise would have, Norman said.
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